Comment by m463

Indeed. It's because of the fashion preferences of American SUV and pickup buyers.

I can attest to the fact that minivans are much more comfortable. I picked up my Pacifica hybrid minivan in early 2021 before the price hike and it was a steal compared to SUVs and pickups. When I was doing paperwork for the vehicle at the Chrysler dealership, I was chatting with some sales guys and discovered the shocking fact they had recently sold a luxuriously loaded-down pickup for over $100K. I was fortunate to easily haggle with them over my minivan because they don't make much money on minivans so they focus on pickups, Jeeps, etc.

A couple decades ago, I had started looking to replace an old hand-me-down car from my grandma, and had been mulling over whether I could ever justify spending $30K on an Infiniti at that time. My boss at work got a new pickup, and he was rather proud of it, and I innocently asked if it cost $25K because plenty of my Texan relatives had driven them over the years and I assumed they were a no-frills working man's practical vehicle. After a brief pause, he answered, "It was a little over 40 thousand." That was over 20 years ago.

Vans don't project manliness. Most people don't use pickup trucks for pickup truck things. They'd be fine with a station wagon, but they have self-confidence issues.

Vans usually have a very difficult time off-road or in mountainous terrain.

Vans are commonly used in urban areas, especially by businesses, but suburbs, rural, and construction benefit from higher clearences of SUVs and trucks.

SUVs are also usually much better in hazardous driving conditions because of a more optimal weight distribution.

I love a van, but they're a pain to work on compared to a full size truck. Like a popular minivan that has a 5 hour book time to do a simple tuneup. Reaching the plugs between the firewall is most of that time. Same with compact PCs, it's a puzzle to get everything in your 7L case.

Yanks never got cool vans. Vans also became synonymous with Chester the Molester. Yanks also had Chevy Astro as an option. I grew up with the family owning a full sized custom van with 2 rows of captain chairs and the third row bench folding out into a bed.

From all of the bitching in the driveway, vans were not pleasant to work on the engine. Some of them had to remove a cover from inside the van to gain access, and that cover tended to not be well insulated and was the source of a lot of heat. Not much of a firewall as a car with the engine fully separated from the passenger compartment.

There were a lot of things people did not like about vans available in the land of Yanks. The Limey vans are not the same, so do not equate your experience as being the same.

Anecdotally, a lot more people in the US tow. And pickup trucks are the indisputable king of towing.

There's also the fact that it's a lot harder to take the top off a van than it is to add a top to the bed of a pickup. If I sometimes moved manure and had a van... I'd probably rent a trailer.

Some "yanks" align their identity with their vehicle. There are songs about trucks but yes a van or mini-van are more flexible.

There are many that buy trucks for off road capabilities but probably 70% or more of truck owners don't go off road more than once a year. Many pick up truck models, like stock versions with crew cabs, are too long and not equipped for serious off-road use. Shallow sand/snow they can handle but so can SUVs.

I wouldn't want to haul 3 yards of dirt/mulch in a van, or yard refuse. I wouldn't want to try and move a full-sized fridge in a van, or a queen bed box spring, neither will fit.

I can't fit an ATV in a van, and I really don't want to put a dead deer in the back of a van after I hunt one.

I wouldn't trust a van to haul 75 8x8x16 concrete bricks (over 2000 lbs/1100kg) because the suspension wasn't designed to do that, nor was the transmission, and the van will quickly deteriorate.

How about moving a couch? Fits in the truck, not in a van.

I did all of those things in the past 12 months.

All that being said, vans are great, especially with kids. They absolutely do not replace trucks... if you use the truck and don't mind getting it dirty. Shiny trucks with 5.5ft beds are fucking stupid. My kids all laugh at "trucks with a baby bed" these days.

Or, downthread, people just assume everyone with a truck is insecure, projecting wealth, and generally ignorant. Which ironically, is a very ignorant take.

I just plain don't have room to store a trailer, but I do have room for a second car - hence I own a ute (pickup or whatever in American parlance).

Which is really the thing: it's very useful to have a second car, but a trailer can't be a second car.

What's really desperately missing is useful payload capacity: a standard ute can't carry 1 ton in the tray confidently (and it's downright impossible to find accurate info on what you should do to get that outside of "add a tag axle").